The other day, as I puttered around the web, I ran into an old friend — the Amul girl. If you’ve ever lived in India, you don’t need an introduction to the Amul girl. You know the bright orange face that’s at once shy and pert. The blue pigtail gushing out of a huge, perfectly round…

I have for you today a very simple, very nutritious and very delicious sprouted mung bean salad that, in my part of India, goes by the name of Moong Usal. There’s something about sprouting beans that brings out the poet in me. Watching those tiny little white squiggles shoot out of the legume and grow,…

A warm hello after a long time to the readers of Holy Cow! I have missed chatting and cooking with you, and I for one am happy that this blog is alive once again. First, I want to thank all of you for the comforting messages, prayers and thoughts you sent our way after our…

…Or Shengdanyachi Aamti, Phodanicha Bhaat ani Kobichi Bhaaji. This is the kind of meal we cook and eat in our home most days. It’s traditional Indian food at its wholesomest. The kind you won’t find at an Indian restaurant, but is better than anything you could eat out. To make this protein-packed meal I dug…

Anticipating festivals can sometimes be more fun than the festivals themselves. The evidence is all around us. Take the holiday season when just about everyone you meet appears to wear a halo of enchantment and goodwill. Charity spikes, and so does courtesy. The day before Thanksgiving, for instance, you just can’t do anything to annoy…

Whether you’re rooting for the Steelers or the Packers, there is no way you can lose at your Superbowl party with this classic snack straight from the streets of Bombay. I like to think of the vada pav as an Indian hot dog– a spicy, deep-fried, incredibly crispy potato dumpling cradled within a soft, fluffy roll…

Poori Bhaji(puri bhaji) is about as delicious as Indian food gets: and by that I mean pick-your-fingernails-with-your-teeth-to-devour-every-last-crumb delicious. This is pure comfort food: the kind that gets made at every festive occasion in an Indian kitchen, no matter where in the world that kitchen is. The kind that kids carry to picnic lunches, the oil…

I have a real weakness for crispy sweets. And at the top of my list is an exquisite, lacy, sesame-seed-and-cardamom-sprinkled delicacy that’s perhaps not very well-known outside Maharashtrian and Konkani homes: Chavde, or Mande. In my childhood home, sweet-making was a joint endeavor between my parents and I can still see them as they made…

The Ghost of the Banyan Tree The story was that the Ghost lived in the 100-year-old banyan tree that stood just behind Building No. 13 in J. P. Nagar. At night he or she (for no one had actually seen the Ghost) would come out and hang around the domed water tank that sat…

Are sansaar sansaar, jasa tavha chulhyavarAadhi hatala chatake, tevha milate bhaakar (Rough translation: Life is like a hot griddle on a stove/You will burn your fingers before you learn how to make bread) I love poetry spun from life’s gritty fabric because not only is it starkly beautiful, but it can be transcendentally wise and…

Here’s a dish straight out of my mom’s kitchen. On hurried nights, she would sometimes put it together using either plantains or potatoes, capitalizing on the natural, starchy deliciousness of these vegetables to make a perfectly sumptuous side-dish in very little time. Kelyache Kaap are not too unlike that delicious Mexican dish, fried plantains, except that we add some typically Indian spices…

Train journeys in India are the stuff of mystery, drama and good eats. Mystery because you may have waited an hour in line to get your reserved seat but when you’re actually in the train there’s no guarantee that seat is going to be empty and waiting for you. And if you’re the kind that shirks…

Miles and miles of beautiful beaches. Seas, rivers, lakes. Crooked mountain roads that make you feel you are on a roller coaster instead of in a car. Breathlessly grand mansions. The birthplace of a man whose message of peace and nonviolence resonates to this day, more than 40 years since he was assassinated, and the…

I haven’t yet posted an eggplant recipe this summer despite my obsession with this incredible vegetable, and here’s the story why: I planted half a dozen eggplant seedlings this year, but being the slow-learning gardener that I am, I planted them a little too late. It was only a week ago that I finally started…